X-Scooter Review

X Scooter Review
By Ron Micjan

Howdy Rebreather divers, this last weekend I had the opportunity to play around with one of the new scooters from Dive Xtras during a demo in Seattle at Alki Point. John Wilkenson, the local rep, brought a unit down to Portland and did a nice presentation for our dive club, NWdive Buddies, of which I am the president (elected when I wasn’t looking). Many of us wanted to try out the unit and he set up a demo time and 7 of us showed up to play. I have only used a scooter a couple times so granted that I am no expert, but I would like to throw it out there for y'all to ponder over.

The unit comes in several models/sizes, from the recreational, single battery unit, up to a monster 3 battery unit that should be able to pull Andre the giant a goodly distance. I played with the smallest unit with a single battery. One thing I noticed right off is that the thing is light, only 35 lbs, so easily carried in one hand while heading to the water, the other thing is when you get in the water, you forgot you were holding it, it was perfectly neutral. It took a minute or so to get the towline attached to my crotch D ring and adjusted to the correct length, unscrewed the safety thumbwheel, pull the magnetically activated switch and away I went.

The unit is steerable with one hand, your arm is held straight out in front for steering and the unit pulls you with the tow line, you push your hand forward to pivot the unit down, and it pulls you down, pull back and you are pitching up, steer left, just like a car steering wheel and the unit begins a sweeping left, same for turning right. I found myself taking to this like a fish takes to water, it was easy, intuitive and most of all FUN!! Our water temp is around 45 deg farenheit, about 6-8 C and I am usually getting cold around 30-40 minutes into the dive, this time I was having so much fun I forgot to be cold. : )

Within 10 minutes on this unit, I was an expert, doing Immelman turns like an ace pilot and scootering through minefields of Lions Mane jellyfish deftly making jellyfish puree with the prop. Granted I have always been good at motorsports, but my friend and dive buddy Patti, was also scooting around like she had done this all her life too. She had never used a scooter before today and said this was the most fun she had ever had with a dry suit on.

A couple features John mentioned, this unit is built with a brushless DC motor, controlled by software that is completely potted and impervious to water, salt or fresh. In fact, if the unit ever gets flooded with saltwater, the manual says to soak the motor in fresh water to rinse the salt off and it’s ready to go again. It has high tech shaft seals similar to what is coming on new boats, it’s a graphite design that also allows any pressure vented by the battery to escape without allowing water to come back in, pretty slick. The switch is a magnetic reed switch that acts through the body, so no hole there for wiring, this is like the way the VR3 dive computer and Megaladon handset buttons work. The prop is an adjustable pitch design, adjustable when the unit is not running by twisting a knob on the spinner of the prop, there is a window to see the pitch value you have selected, 1-9. The motor is a constant speed motor so you adjust your water speed by the prop pitch, but the faster you want to go, the more you load the motor down and the more power you pull from the battery, nothing is free.

The run times published are based on highest pitch with max drag, so your actual trigger time will be longer, the small unit with high torque motor will do 45 minutes, the largest with the low torque motor, 180. There are 6 models available with two motors and three bodies that are interchangeable with up to 3 stacked batteries for those long cave penetrations. A bit confusing, but you can check out the website for more info and hopefully get a demo near you.

The website is Dive Xtras and you can reach John at john@dive-xtras.com.

Dive Safe